Outline   C1. Postgraduate Practical Law Course (PLC) and Dining Terms (Edu-Dine)
The PLC is a full-time course currently running for five months. The course has the following specific objectives:-
1. to teach and train students in procedural law and practice, practical evidence, and certain areas of substantive law relevant to practice in Singapore;
2. to train them in the skills of the professional lawyer and to provide opportunities to practise these skills under supervision.
It will introduce students to the work of the professional lawyer in his office, in dealing with clients, and in the courts. Stress will be laid on the tasks that the young lawyer will meet in the early years of practice, particularly on the acquisition and development of practical skills. These will include the following:-
1. Oral and written communications in a variety of settings. Oral skills will include interviewing (with the aid of interpreters when necessary), counselling, negotiating, mediation and advocacy. Some emphasis will be given to practising trial advocacy. Skills in writing will include the effective drafting of correspondence, opinions, pleadings, briefs and drafting in Plain English - legal documents such as conveyances, contracts, deeds and wills.
2. Decision-making. This will include the ability to assemble a wide range of facts which may be necessary for a decision, to sift the relevant from the irrelevant facts, to analyze the legal and factual situations into the appropriate issues and to determine rationally the advantages and disadvantages of various courses of action.
3. Office Management. This will include the keeping of client accounts (a statutory obligation for private practitioners) and the methods and equipment for efficient office management.

 
EDU-DINE
In 1999, the Board introduced an institution called Edu-Dine for PLC students. It has two main objectives. The first is to provide a congenial forum where, over 3 dinners, PLC students may interact with judges, senior lawyers, law academics, etc, so as to know them better and to develop a collegiate spirit among members of the legal fraternity.

The second objective, and this is to make the dinners more interesting and lively, is to introduce PLC students to contemporary and historical social, political and economic ideas and issues that may impact on or have relevance to their legal practice and development.

 
PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE PLC
The PLC has been developed by the Board of Legal Education (Board) as a practical course covering those skills an advocate & solicitor needs to have and know in the early years of his practice.
The main principles of the PLC are:
1. The course aims to be practical.
2. Training is based on participation. This makes classes stimulating, but it is vital that students are prepared for them and they practise as much as possible.
3. All practical training exercises are as realistic as possible. Most exercises are based on real cases and students will get most out of them if they treat them as such.
4. The course will expect students to work as a trainee professional. For example, students will be expected to develop time management skills that may not be necessary to them as an undergraduate.
5. The content of the course is broadly based, so as to cover the areas that the majority of students are likely to encounter in pupillage or early practice.
 

The course will be arranged as follows:-
I. Examinable Subjects
a. Civil Procedure;
b. Criminal Procedure;
c. Commercial Practice (which will include practical aspects of company law, insolvency and winding-up, admiralty, arbitration and credit and security);
d. Conveyancing Practice;
e. Professional Responsibility;
f. Family Law Practice; and Wills, Probate and Administration.
The Board of Legal Education may in its discretion amend the syllabus for the course or any individual subject as it thinks fit according to the circumstances.

 
II. Teaching and Examinations
The above six sections will be taught by lectures, seminars and tutorials. A written examination will be set in each of the six papers at the end of the course. Students will be expected to draft in plain English, inter alia, agreements and/or contracts.

 
III. Practical Exercises
Students will practise -
(a) court skills; and
(b) drafting skills
in small classes under the supervision of experienced consultants drawn mainly from the ranks of practitioners. Court skills will be those advocacy and trial skills which the young lawyer will be called upon to display during the first year or two in practice. They will include practice in the making of various applications and submissions to a court and in the examination and cross-examination of witnesses.

 
Registration for PLC
a) An announcement will be made in the form of an advertisement in the PUBLIC NOTICES column in the "Straits Times" at the end of February of the same year to inform the public where to obtain the Application Forms. Registration for the PLC usually commences in March the same year.
b) Priority is given to Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents.
c) Training Visit Pass (TVP) - Please refer to paragraph on TVP in Item C.
d) Foreign law students who will not be serving pupillage before PLC are requested to write to the Visitor Services Centre, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, 10 Kallang Road, 4th Storey, ICA Building, Singapore 208718 for a Student’s Pass to attend the PLC.
e) For the course fee, please refer to the PLC application form.
Back Next Content Outline Home